


Bite Like a Dog

by Masu_Trout



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Protectiveness, Serial Killers, Vampire-Human Friendship, Vampires, Vampiric Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 21:29:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21278018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: A stranger stood on the doorstep of the Night Asylum. He had the pale, unmarred skin of an Ekon and the crimson-red eyes of someone well fed.Sean protects his flock.





	Bite Like a Dog

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greygerbil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/gifts).

> I was hoping to get this posted yesterday - I hope you enjoy this, regardless of the less-than-spooky posting date!

The man at the door stank of blood. Sean could sense his still heart even through the wall, and he could sense just as easily the fresh crimson smears on his cuffs and at the corner of his mouth. It made his teeth ache.

He’d been in the middle of boiling water for bandages, making sure to keep his hands well clear of the flame; though the worst of the scourge had passed, the sick and wounded healed slowly. Now, he stood, turned his back to the kitchen and walked towards the main hall of the shelter.

"Lottie?" he called as he went. "If you could do me a favor and take up my spot in the kitchen for a moment…"

As he moved through the aisles, he kept a running tally of who among his human flock was here tonight. Lottie was helping out as usual, Giselle slept somewhere on the top floor of the shelter, Ichabod had stopped by for a break from his nightly patrol, they had twelve sick or wounded in the beds…

Lottie must have seen something in his face, because she stopped short when she caught sight of him. "Sean? Is something the matter?"

"Nothing at all," he assured her. Nothing except the fact that the figure had not moved.

It could be a fellow skal, or some poor lost soul struggling to overcome their instincts. He himself knew how the hunger could overwhelm; it would be cruel of him to judge another for it. It was cruel of him that the red-stained silhouette at the door made him want to place himself between it and the rest of his flock.

_I was a stranger and you welcomed me_, he thought, trying not to dwell on the rest of the verse. He had no food or drink he could offer a guest like this, no matter how terrible their thirst. 

There was a knock at the door. Slow. Deliberate. It didn’t sound like it came from someone afraid.

"Father," Lottie asked, turning where she stood, "should I..?"

"No!" Sean said, too loudly. "No, thank you, but—the bandages, please. I’ll greet our new visitor."

A few of the ill had stirred; and, from a bed near the corner, Ichabod was watching him and Lottie both with confusion in his eyes.

Sean winced, and went to the door. He paused a moment there, willing his racing thoughts to calm, waiting for Lottie to be safely in the other room, before he opened it.

A stranger stood on the doorstep of the Night Asylum. He had the pale, unmarred skin of an Ekon and the crimson-red eyes of someone well fed. He smiled when he caught sight of Sean, and his smile was full of teeth.

"Hello," he all-but-purred, his voice too intimate by half for two strangers meeting late at night. "I’m told there’s shelter to be had here?"

"Yes," admitted Sean. "There is, but"—his mind was racing, caught between the desire to help and the desire to slam the door shut—"first, I must ask, what are your intentions here? You must forgive me for being blunt, but I can’t imagine you’ll be needing to sleep tonight."

The Ekon’s eyes widened. He leaned in closer, staring closely at Sean, and then his grin grew sharper.

"A skal!" he said, amused. "I didn’t expect to find one of you beasts here. Well, come on, then, invite me in. There’ll be meat enough left for you when I’ve had my fill of blood, I promise."

Sean tightened his grip on the door, and said nothing.

The Ekon’s blood-touched eyes narrowed. "Skal," he murmured, "is your brain already that rotten? I said _let me in_."

Sean had knelt once before, in the face of an Ekon’s irresistible command. This man was no Doctor Reid; his words were hollow. Sean batted them out of his mind, like he would a buzzing fly, and bared his teeth at the Ekon. "I think it’s best you leave now."

"Hm." The Ekon looked almost impressed. "Well, I’ll admit I didn’t expect that from one of you. Fine, then, beast. Keep your meal, if you want it to yourself that badly. I have better things to do than fight an animal for a taste of the blood of the sick." 

_Thank you, Lord._ Sean gripped his cross in one hand. If this stranger thought him a murderer, that was fine, so long as he stayed away from the Night Shelter. Apparently the Docks hadn’t been as passed-over by the Ekon territory squabbles as he’d hoped.

Hands up and palms facing out, the Ekon took one careful step backwards, and another—

On the third, he shifted his stance, locked eyes with Sean, and leaped forward with a bestial howl.

Sean tried to slam the door shut, but in a wisp of shadow the vampire was upon him; he sank his teeth into the arm that was still outside the shelter’s safety, grabbed two handfuls of Sean's coat, and hauled him forward.

"Sean!" someone exclaimed from behind him, but Sean couldn’t turn to look. He let the momentum carry the two of them forward as they tumbled back against the cobbles and hard-packed dirt, slashed at the Ekon’s mouth until his attacker unlatched with a howl of pain. Blood oozed from the punctures on Sean’s arm and the gouge he’d left in his attacker’s face. The scent of it hung thick in the air.

For a moment, he and the Ekon only stared at each other: Sean on all fours with his teeth bared, the Ekon dropped into a crouch and wiping the blood from his cheek. Behind them, Sean could sense heartbeats, as familiar as the walls of his own room even beating as fast as they were now.

A chill seized Sean’s heart. He had not hoped for any of them to witness this.

"Ichabod, Lottie," he growled, trying to keep his voice gentle, even roughened as it was by fear and the smell of blood, "please, stay insi—"

Another burst of shadow and the Ekon was on him again; Sean growled like a wild animal, snapping and twisting, staying just far enough from his attacker’s teeth and claws to avoid being pinned and not far enough to avoid the glancing blows—he took a shallow bite to the neck, a strike to the head that left the scabs there oozing sluggishly, a long scratch across his shoulder. He couldn’t fight back properly, too focused on just surviving the next moment, and the next and the next.

(There was meat behind him, he could smell it. Behind him, through the door, he was already invited in, all he needed to gain the upper hand was just—_No_, he raged, throwing off the claws of those slick oily thoughts at the same time as he knocked the Ekon’s claws aside. He would not, he would never. Doctor Reid had given of his own body to allow Sean control over those urges; he would not betray his precious flock the moment he was in danger.)

"Starving beast," the Ekon taunted, turning aside one of Sean’s desperate blows with practiced ease. "Don’t you have even enough blood to flee? How long has it been since you last fed?"

Sean had never tried to draw the shadows to his own aid. He’d never even thought to try. Shame grabbed at him—the Lord had given him these gifts, only for him to squander them in idleness, and now his flock would be the ones to pay.

_No,_ he thought, imagining the people under his protection falling beneath the Ekon’s fangs, _never_, and with a snarl he threw himself bodily at the other vampire.

The Ekon hadn’t been prepared to have his own tactics used against him; he fell backwards with a yelp of surprise, slamming against the cobblestones once more. He was winded for only a moment before the wound began to heal—but it was moment enough for Sean to sink his teeth into the Ekon’s unguarded neck.

"You damn _wretch_!" shrieked the Ekon, all plays at manners lost beneath his pain. "You worthless rat, you—get off of me!"

His knifelike claws sank into Sean’s back, slicing through cloth and flesh and muscle right down to the bone. He rolled them both over until Sean was under him, snarling curses when the movement made Sean’s teeth sink deeper into his skin, and then lifted his body and _slammed_ them both against the street.

Pain bloomed behind Sean’s eyes, dark stars bursting in his vision as the Ekon's face swam above him. Another bone-rattling hit and his skull felt hot and then strangely cold. Blood oozed from the cut on his head, the coppery scent of it mingling with the taste of the Ekon's flesh between his teeth until all he could see or feel or understand was pain and bloodlust. 

Sean held on. It didn't matter if he died, so long as his attacker died with him. This man would touch Sean's flock over his twice-dead body and not a moment before. 

The Ekon scrabbled against the cobbles, preparing to crack Sean's skull against the stone once more—

And then he _wailed_, high and shocked, like a beast being struck, and let go of Sean as his body spasmed in pain.

No time to think. No time to wonder. Sean had been granted a miracle, and he intended to make use of it: he grabbed the Ekon's hair with one hand, twisted his teeth deeper into the skin, and—in a single sudden movement, so fiercely inhuman that he surprised even himself—tore the Ekon's throat out. A spray of arterial blood spattered across Sean's face as the vampire gurgled and writhed and Sean rolled them both over once more to pin the Ekon to the ground until his last struggles grew weaker and then weaker and finally subsided.

The vampire's eyes were open in death. He looked surprised.

He had been someone's friend once, Sean thought, someone's brother or son, and he spat the mass of muscle and flesh out onto the ground and murmured, "God forgive me."

He fumbled for his cross with a shaking hand, but it had been torn from his neck somewhere in the fight. His back felt as though it was on fire. He lay there, facedown against the cobbles with a dead body under him, and tried to move his hands enough to press them together. He did not know how to ask forgiveness for this.

From somewhere far above him, someone asked, "Sean?"

The name sounded like it came from worlds away, like it belonged to some other man. For a moment Sean was still—some frightened voice in the back of his head telling him that if he only stayed still they wouldn't see him, they wouldn't know—and then he forced himself to his hands and knees and, crouching there like a wounded dog, turned to look at his flock.

Ichabod stood there, face pale and frightened, holding a fire poker in one hand. The end of it dripped with blood.

"Ah," said Sean, "it seems I owe you my thanks." He tried for a smile, then pressed his lips back together when he remembered there was blood between his teeth. "You're a fine vampire hunter indeed. A credit to our community."

"You didn't do too badly yourself, for someone without my experience," Ichabod said. His eyes dropped to the Ekon and the bloody mess of his throat. His voice was shaking. Tonight was, Sean suspected, the first time he had ever actually wounded a vampire.

"The Lord has smiled down on me."

"Of course. The Lord." The bluster to his words didn't hide the fear there. But Sean didn't tell him so, and he didn't flinch when Ichabod stepped forward and pressed the point of the poker against the hollow of Sean's throat.

He could feel the cold iron edge of it. It was very, very sharp, and right now Sean was too weak even to crawl.

"Sean," Ichabod said, haltingly, "I never asked, I didn't wish to be rude, but—the lesions on your face. You have some sort of disease, do you not? An illness?"

Ichabod's eyes were fixed on Sean. No doubt he was remembering some poor, abscessed, mange-covered skal he'd seen in some back alley or another. Sean resisted the urge to paw at his own face. He was not vain, he had never prayed for good looks—he had no reason to feel self-conscious. 

"It's no disease," Sean said. "It's a gift from the Lord."

"The gift of vampirism." His eyes didn't leave Sean's face.

"The gift of immortality. To attend to the ill without fear of falling sick, to watch over my flock into eternity. I am grateful to Him for it." Ichabod's were shaking; blood welled up where the poker dug into Sean's skin. Sean wouldn't bare his teeth at Ichabod—if he died now, so be it. His flock was safe. But he did say, quietly, "Ichabod, I know your... mission. I know what you think of my kind. But I promise you, you have nothing to fear from me. I am devoted to my flock."

"I don't understand. How long have you been... like this?"

"A few months now. Since the pandemic."

Ichabod sucked in a breath between his teeth. "And you haven't—?"

Sean hesitated, flicking his tongue out over his teeth to catch the blood there. He didn't know how to explain to Ichabod, or to any mortal man, the hunger and the way it had almost consumed him, or the difference between needing flesh to survive and craving it to live. He still ate of the dead, on rare occasions. He was a skal; his body would accept no other meal than flesh and blood. But ever since Doctor Reid's strange visit he no longer looked at the humans he protected, at their delicate skin and quick-beating pulses, and _wondered_.

"I've never taken a life," he said finally, "or harmed a living human. I give you my word."

Sean watched Ichabod bite his lip, watched him consider the gaps in Sean's words. Ichabod could be brash on occasion, but under it all he was no fool—no one living in the East End could afford to be.

"All right," he sighed, and then he let go of the poker. It clattered against the cobblestones, loud as a bell to Sean's ears. "What a night this has been."

Relief flooded through Sean's body._Thank you, Lord._ He tried to pull himself to his feet, stumbled—and Ichabod was at his side, pulling Sean's arm up over his shoulder with no regard for how near to Sean's teeth he was putting his neck. Apparently he was taking Sean's promise very seriously.

"Hold on now, my friend, you're bleeding—well, a fair amount." 

Sean smiled. "Please, don't worry about me. This isn't enough to kill me."

Ichabod swallowed, looking rather queasy. "...Right, of course. But Lottie will be worried, I'm sure."

"Ah," said Sean. That was true, and a conversation he _very_ deeply wasn't looking forward to having. He could only imagine what a mess he looked right now—skull fractured, back flayed, clothes soaked through with blood. He'd have to make sure none of the humans got too close to his wounds. For all he cherished his gift, he wouldn't force it on others. Between his injuries and the explanations he'd no doubt need to give, there was more than enough unpleasantness ahead of him.

Still. It felt good to relax, if only for a moment, to let his head fall onto another's shoulder and be carried back into a place he knew he was safe.


End file.
